CIA y Napoleon III

APPROVED FOR RELEASE
CIA HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM
22 SEPT 93

CONFIDENTIAL

The story of a critical intelligence finding almost unrecorded in the history of French intervention in Mexico during and after the Civil War is reconstructed here from official records in the National Archives.


A CABLE FROM NAPOLEON

Edwin C. Fishel

The years 1864-67 saw the United States facing one of the severest international problems in its history: an Austrian prince ruled Mexico and a French army occupied the south bank of the Rio Grande. It was toward the end of this period that the Atlantic cable went into permanent operation. Thus the United States had both the motive and the means for what was almostcertainly its first essay in peacetime communications intelligence.l

The nation had emerged from the Civil War possessing a respectable intelligence capability. Union espionage activities were generally successful, especially in the later stages of the war; Northern communications men read Confederate messages with considerable regularity (and received reciprocal treatment of their own traffic from the rebel signalmen) ; and there were intelligence staffs that developed a high degree of competence in digesting and reporting these findings.2
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1 No earlier use of communications intelligence by the United States in peacetime is known to the writer. Any reader who knows of one is urged to present it.

2 At the beginning of the war the government's conception of military intelligence work was so limited that it employed Allan Pinkerton, by that time well known as the head of a successful detective agency, as the chief intelligence operative in Washington. Pinkerton proved effective in counterintelligence work, but his intelligence estimates so greatly exaggerated Confederate strength that he is commonly given a large share of the blame for the super caution that caused his sponsor, General McClellan, to stay close to Washington with far superior forces. Pinkerton left the service with McClellan in 1862, however, and long before the end of the war competent intelligence staffs, entirely military in character though composed of men drawn from civil life, served the principal headquarters.



With the war over in 1865, this new capability was turned against Napoleon III and his puppet, Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. In the struggle to get the French army out of North America and Maximilian off his throne, this government had the use of an intelligence enterprise which, though conducted on a small scale, turned out to be very effective. Up to the last weeks this intelligence operation consisted of competent reporting on the part of espionage agents and diplomatic representatives; but when a crisis developed at that point, these sources were silent, and it was a cablegram from Napoleon to his commanders in Mexico that yielded the information needed by the nation's leaders.

As an intelligence coup the interception and reading of this message were hardly spectacular, for it passed over fifteen hundred miles of telegraph wire accessible to United States forces and, contrary to later assertions that it had to be deciphered, it appears to have been sent in the clear. Nevertheless, the event was an outstanding one in the history of United States intelligence operations, not simply because it represented a beginning in a new field but also because the message in question was of crucial importance.

State of the Union, 1861-65

The crisis in which America's intelligence capability asserted itself did not come until after the nation had spent five anxious years watching the European threat develop.

Napoleon had sent an army to Mexico late in 1861, assertedly to compel the payment of huge debts owed by the government of Mexico. His object, however, was not simply a financial one: a new commander whom he sent to Mexico in 1863 received instructions (which leaked into the press) to the effect that the Emperor's purpose was to establish a Mexican government strong enough to limit "the growth and prestige of the United States." 3 At a time when the American Union appeared to be breaking up under pressure from its southern half, such a statement meant to American readers that Napoleon had no intention of stopping at the Rio Grande.
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'3 J. Fred Rippy, The United States and Mexico (New York, 1926), p. 261, citing Genaro y Carlos Pereya Garcia, Documentos ineditos o muy raros para la historia de Mejico (20 vols., Mexico City, 1903), XIV, pp. 8-20.


In June 1863 French arms swept the Liberal government of President Benito Juarez from Mexico City, and in the summer of 1864 Napoleon installed the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, thirty-two-year-old brother of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, on the new throne of Mexico. During this period the Northern people, their belligerence aroused by the Southern rebellion, were clamoring for action against France - action that might well bring disaster upon them. Aggressive behavior by the United States might give Napoleon the popular support he needed to join hands with the Confederacy in a declaration of war, a development that could provide Secession with enough extra strength to prevail.

While the Civil War lasted, Congress and the public were held in check largely through the prestige and political skill of the Federal Secretary of State, William H. Seward. But when the War was over - by which time the government had reason to believe that Napoleon had become disenchanted with his puppets in Mexico - Seward was ready to turn his people's aggressive demeanor to advantage, and he warned Napoleon that their will would sooner or later prevail. Before this statement reached Paris, however, the United States Minister there, John Bigelow, who had been mirroring Seward's new firmness for some months, had in September 1865 obtained a tentative statement from the French that they intended to withdraw from Mexico .4

While Bigelow was shaking an admonitory finger at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an American military fist was being displayed before the French along the Rio Grande. Promptly upon the silencing of Confederate guns, General Grant sent Philip Sheridan, second only to William T. Sherman in the esteem of the General-in-Chief, to the command of the Department of the Gulf, with headquarters at New Orleans. A considerable force was posted along the Mexican frontier and designated an "army of observation."
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4Rippy, op. cit., pp. 264-65 and 269-72; Seward to Bigelow, September 21, 1865. All diplomatic correspondence sent or received by United States officials that is cited herein will be found in the Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the First Session, Thirty-Ninth Congress (covering the year 1865), Second Session, Thirty-Ninth Congress (1866), and Second Session, Fortieth Congress (1867-68).


Sheridan and Intelligence

Sheridan, thirty-four years old and the possessor of a reputation as a gamecock, adhered strongly to an opinion prevalent in the Army that a little forceful military action now would save a full-scale war later. The audacious statesman who was directing foreign policy at Washington was, to Sheridan, "slow and poky," and the general found ways of giving considerable covert aid to the Juarez government, then leading a nomadic existence in the north of Mexico.5 Sheridan and Seward, though the policy of each was anathema to the other, made an effective combination.

One of the ways in which Sheridan could exercise his relentless energy against the Imperialists without flouting Seward's policy was in collecting intelligence on what was going on below the border. There was an interregnum at the United States Legation in Mexico City, and all the official news reaching Washington from below the Rio Grande was that supplied by the Juarist Minister to the United States, Matias Romero, a scarcely unbiased source if a prolific one .6 Sheridan quickly undertook to fill the gap.

This task must have been decidedly to the general's taste, for he had been one of the most intelligence-conscious commanders in the Civil War.7 He had achieved something of an innovation in organizing intelligence activities when, during his 1864 campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, he established a group of intelligence operatives under military control. His previous sources of information, local citizens and Confederate deserters, had both proved unreliable. "Sheridan's Scouts" were a military organization in a day when it was customary to have civilians perform most of the intelligence-gathering tasks other
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5 John M. Schofield, Forty-Six Years in the Army (New York, 1897), p. 381; Philip H. Sheridan, Personal Memoirs (2 vols., New York, 1888), II, pp. 215-19;Percy F. Martin, Maximilian in Mexico (London, 1914), p. 432.

6 Dozens of examples of this intelligence will be found in the Romero-to-Seward correspondence in the Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs described in footnote 4.

7 When a division commander in 1862-63, Sheridan had exercised an initiative in intelligence collection that was more likely to be found in an army commander. His Memoirs reveal a constantly high interest in intelligence activities.




than battle-zone reconnaissance. After the war, Major Henry Harrison Young, the Scouts' commander, and four of his best men went to the Gulf Department with Sheridan.

Sheridan also, in common with numerous other commanders North and South, had an acquaintance with communications intelligence as it was produced in the field command of that day. By the time the Civil War was well advanced, Signal Corpsmen in every theater had learned how to solve the enemy's visual-signaling alphabets, and they derived much information for the commanders by keeping their field glasses trained on enemy signal stations.8 There was not likely to be any opportunity for such methods along the Rio Grande, however, and no more likely was the possibility of tapping telegraph lines carrying useful information.

Young and his four men were dispatched to important points in northern Mexico to report on movements of the Imperial forces and the various projects of ex-Confederates who were joining Maximilian's forces and attempting to establish colonies under his flag.8 Judged by the accuracy of the reports reaching Sheridan and the strong tendency of the Southerners' projects to abort after coming under his notice, the work of these five men was most effective.10

1866, Year of Telegrams and Tension

The critical question - whether the French would tire of their venture and withdraw -was, however, one to which no intelligence service could divine an answer, for the French for a long time did not know the answer themselves. In 1865 Marshal Franois Achille Bazaine, now Napoleon's commander in Mexico, was informed by the Minister of War that he must bring the army home, and at about the same time he received
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8War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, 1884-1901) contains hundreds of decipherments resulting from such interceptions, chiefly in the operations of 1863-65 in Tennessee and Georgia, the operations along the South Carolina coast beginning in 1863, and the Richmond-Petersburg siege of 1864-65.

9 Sheridan, op. cit., II, p. 214.

10 See, for example, intelligence reports sent by Sheridan to Grant, March 27, May 7, June 24, July 3 and 13, 1866. All Army correspondence cited hereafter in this article will be found in the United States National Archives, except where otherwise indicated.



word to the opposite effect from the Emperor himself.11 Napoleon's treaty with Maximilian by which the latter accepted the throne of Mexico contained a secret clause providing that French military forces to the number of 20,000 were to remain in Mexico until November 1867.12 As events were to prove, however, this compact was less likely to determine Napoleon's course of action than were the pressures on him represented by the United States' vigorous diplomacy and the rising military power of Prussia.

In April 1866 Minister Bigelow succeeded in pinning Napoleon down to a definite understanding, to the effect that the 28,000 French soldiers in Mexico would be brought home in three detachments, leaving in November 1866 and March and November 1867. Seward's reply to this promise was characteristic of his tone at this time: dwelling only briefly on the diplomatic niceties, he suggested that the remaining period of occupation be shortened if possible. The Secretary was in high feather; in the same month a protest by him induced the Austrian government to abandon an effort to send substantial reinforcements to the small Austrian force in Maximilian's army.13

In June Maximilian received a studiously insolent letter from Napoleon containing the stunning announcement that the French would withdraw. Attention now focused on whether he would attempt to hold his throne without French arms. The unhappy sovereign reacted first by dispatching his Empress, twenty-six-year-old Carlota, to Paris in a vain attempt to change Napoleon's mind. He soon decided to abdicate, then determined to remain on his throne, then wavered for many weeks between abdicating and remaining. 14

Napoleon meanwhile had to contend not only with his protege's indecision but with some apparent recalcitrance on the
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11 Philip Guedalla, The Two Marshals (London, 1943) p. 130.

12 Ibid., p. 112.

13 Seward to de Montholon, April 25, 1866; Seward to J. Lothrop Motley (United States Minister to Austria), April 6, 16, 30, May 3, 30, 1866; Motley to Seward, April 6, May 1, 6, 15, 21, 1866; James M. Callahan, American Foreign Policy in Mexican Relations (New York, 1932), p. 235.

14 Martin, op. cit., pp. 266-267 and 272-273.



part of Bazaine, who was variously suspected of having a secret agreement with Maximilian to remain in the latter's support, of being secretly in league with the Mexican Liberals, of profiting financially from his official position, and of having hopes of succeeding Maximilian. (There is evidence to support all these suspicions.) 15 Soon Napoleon realized he had made a bad bargain with the United States; to attempt to bring the army home in three parts would risk the annihilation of the last third. Early in the autumn of 1866 the Emperor sent his military aide, General Castelnau, to Mexico with instructions to have the army ready to leave in one shipment in March, and to supersede Bazaine if necessary. Thus the evacuation was to begin four months later than Napoleon had promised, but to end eight months earlier.16

No word of this important about-face was, however, promptly passed to the United States government. At the beginning of November - supposedly the month for the first shipment - the best information this country's leaders possessed was a strong indication that Napoleon intended to rid himself of Maximilian. This was contained in a letter written to Maximilian by a confidential agent whom he had sent to Europe; it showed the failure of Carlota's visit to Napoleon. Somewhere between its point of origin, Brussels, and its destination, the office of Maximilian's consul in New York, it had fallen into the hands of a Juarist agent .17 Soon after Minister Romero placed it in Seward's hands, Napoleon's new Foreign Minister, the Marquis de Moustier, wrote his Minister in Washington, de Montholon, that the evacuation timetable was raising serious difficulties but that in no case would the November 1867 deadline for its
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15 Castelnau to Napoleon, December 8, 1866, quoted in Georges A. M. Girard, La Vie et les souvenirs du General Castelnau (Paris, 1930), pp. 112-124; Marcus Otterbourg (United States charge d'affaires in Mexico) to Seward, December 29, 1866; Martin, op. cit., pp. 298-99; Lewis D. Campbell (United States Minister to Mexico) to Seward, November 21, 1866.
16 De Moustier (Foreign Minister) to de Montholon (Minister to the United States), October 16, 1866, in Foreign Affairs; Bigelow to Seward, November 8, 1866; Martin, op. cit., pp. 56-57; Guedalla, op. cit., p. 133; Girard, op. cit., p. 122.

17 Romero to Seward, October 10, 1866; New York Tribune, January 4, 1867.








completion be exceeded.18 This note should have reached Seward in early November (1866), but if it did, its strong hint that there would be no partial evacuation in that month was apparently lost on him.

When the French felt able to promise complete withdrawal in March, de Moustier revealed to Bigelow the abandonment of the three-stage plan. So alarmed was Bigelow by the prospect of a major outbreak of anti-French feeling in America that he refrained from sending the news to Seward until he had heard it from the Emperor himself, whom he saw on November 7. The November shipment had been cancelled for reasons purely military, the Emperor said, showing surprise that the United States had not known of the change. The order had been telegraphed to Bazaine and had been sent in the clear in order that "no secret might be made of its tenor in the United States." 19 Undoubtedly the Emperor was perfectly sincere in implying that he expected the United States government to make itself a tacit "information addressee" on telegrams of foreign governments reaching its territory.

Receiving Bigelow's report of this interview, Seward struck off a peremptory cablegram to Paris: the United States "cannot acquiesce," he declared. The 774 words of this message unfolded before Bigelow on November 26 and 27, their transmission having cost the State Department some $13,000. On December 3 Bigelow telegraphed the Foreign Minister's assurance that military considerations alone were responsible for the change of plans and his promise, somewhat more definite than the previous one, that the French "corps of occupation is to embark in the month of March next." 20

So strongly had this government relied on Napoleon's original promise that President Johnson had dispatched an important diplomatic mission to Mexico (republican Mexico, that is) - a mission that was already at sea, expecting, on arrival at Vera
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18 De Moustier to de Montholon, October 16, loc. cit.

19 Bigelow to Seward, November 8, 1866.

20Seward to Bigelow, November 23, 1866; Dexter Perkins, The Monroe Doctrine, 1826-1867 (Baltimore, 1933), p. 534; Bigelow to Seward, December 3, 1866.




Cruz, to find the French leaving and Juarez resuming the reins of government. The mission consisted of ex-Senator Lewis D. Campbell, newly appointed Minister to Mexico, and General William T. Sherman, sent with Campbell to give the mission prestige, to advise Juarez in regard to the many military problems that would be plaguing him, 21 and possibly to arrange for the use of small numbers of United States troops to assist the Liberal regime by temporarily occupying certain island forts .22

Evidence was accumulating that Maximilian and his European troops would soon be gone from Mexico, 22 but it stood no chance of general acceptance in Washington. Such was the degree of trust now accorded Louis Napoleon that his promise to evacuate Mexico would be believed on the day when the last French soldier took ship at Vera Cruz.

At this juncture Sheridan's headquarters came into possession of a copy of a coded telegram to Napoleon from Bazaine and Castelnau. The message had left Mexico City by courier on December 3 and had been delivered to the French Consulate at New Orleans, from where it was telegraphed to Paris on the 9th. As will be explained below, there is every reason to believe that this message went unread by United States cryptographers. The possession of its contents would have been of great value, for the message (as translated from the version given by Castelnau's biographer) said:
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21 Seward's instructions to Campbell, dated October 25, 1866, are perhaps the most impressive of the numerous masterful documents produced by the Secretary in the Mexican affair. Grant was the President's first selection as the military member of the mission and was excused only after a number of urgent requests. Correspondence relating to the inception of the Sherman-Campbell mission includes: Andrew Johnson to E. M. Stanton, October 26 and 30; Grant to Sherman (at St. Louis), October 20 and 22; Grant to Johnson, October 20 and 21, and Grant to Stanton, October 27.

22 Sherman to Grant, November 3, 1866 (Sherman MSS, Library of Congress) ; Grant to Sheridan, November 4, 1866. Sheridan was directed to "comply with any request as to location of troops in your department that Lt. Gen. Sherman . . . may make."

23 Campbell to Seward, November 21, 1866; unaddressed, unsigned military intelligence report dated at Washington, November 18.





New Orleans, 9 Dec 1866
To His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon at Paris. Mexico, 3rd December.

Emperor Maximilian appears to wish to remain in Mexico, but we must not count on it. Since the evacuation is to be completed in March, it is urgent that the transports arrive. We think that the foreign regiment must also be embarked. As for the French officers and soldiers attached to the Mexican Corps, can they be allowed the option of returning?

The country is restless. The Campbell and Sherman mission, which arrived off Vera Cruz on November 29 and left December 3, seems disposed to a peaceful solution. Nevertheless it gives moral support to the Juarists through the statement of the Federal government.

Marshal Bazaine and General Castelnau 24

As December wore on, rumblings from Capitol Hill indicated that Congress - the same Congress that was even then moving to impeach President Johnson - might attempt to take the management of the entire affair out of the Administration's hands. Word arrived from Bigelow that transports to bring the army home were ready to sail from French ports, but that information would by no means be convincing enough to reassure Washington. And that word was the last to be heard from Bigelow, as competent a reporter as he was a diplomatist. He was relieved as Minister by John Adams Dix, ex-senator, ex-general, who did not manage to turn his hand to report-writing until mid-February, after the crisis was past.25

Similarly, nothing that would clarify the situation was coming out of Mexico. General Grant received a report from Sherman, at Vera Cruz, containing two items of intelligence, highly significant and completely contradictory: two ships, waiting at Vera Cruz to take Maximilian home, had been loaded with tremendous quantities of royal baggage; and the Emperor had just issued a proclamation to the Mexican people announcing (continued on page 92)
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24 Girard, op. cit., pp. 117-18.

25 New York Herald, December 7, 1866, p. 4, col. 3; Bigelow to Seward, November 30, 1866; Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John Adams Dix (2 vols., New York, 1883), II, 150; Dix to Seward, December 24, 1866.






First and last pages of the five-page message to Napoleon III from his commanders in Mexico, reporting on the situation there and asking instructions concerning the evacuation of the European forces. The French clear-text version, as repeated by General Castelnau in a letter to Napoleon on December 8, 1866 (and quoted by Castelnau's biographer), reads:

L'empereur Maximilien parait vouloir rester au Mexique, mais on ne peut y compter. L'evacuation devant etre terminee en mars, il est urgent que les transports arrivent. Nous pensons que le regiment etranger doit etre aussi embarque. Quant aux officiers et soldats frangais detaches aux corps mexicains, peut-on leur laisser la faculte de revenir? Le pays est inquiet. La mission Campbell et Sherman arrivee devant Vera Cruz le 29 novembre et partie le 3 decembre semble disposee a une solution pacifique. Elle Wen donne pas moins un appui moral aux Juaristes par la declaration du gouvernement federal.


(from page 90)
his intention to remain. Sherman and Campbell were facng a dilemma, in that they could not reach Juarez without crossing territory held by the Imperialists, with whom they were supposed to have nothing to do. Sherman invited Grant to instruct him to go to Mexico City to see Bazaine, who, he was sure, would tell him the truth about French intentions, but nothing came of this suggestion. Wrote the general of the colorful pen and the fervid dislike of politics: "I am as anxious to find Juarez as Japhet was to find his father, that I may dispose of this mission." 26
Tension mounted in Washington early in January as the Senate prepared for a debate on the Mexican question, and a wide variety of reports circulated, the most ominous being that half of the French forces were to remain in Mexico through the summer, and that Assistant Secretary of State Frederick W. Seward, who had sailed mysteriously from Annapolis on Christmas day, was on his way to see Napoleon. (He was en route to the West Indies on one of his father's projects for the purchase of territory.) 27 But on January 12, before the Senate got around to the Mexican question, the War Department received a message from Sheridan at New Orleans transmitting the following telegram:

Paris Jany 10th
French Consul New Orleans
for General Cast[elnau] at Mexico.

Received your dispatch of the ninth December. Do not compel the Emperor to abdicate, but do not delay the departure of the troops; bring back all those who will not remain there. Most of the fleet has left.


NAPOLEON.
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26 Sherman to Grant, December 1 and 7, 1866. Sherman, despite his reputation for hard-headedness, was not one of those who favored military action by the United States in Mexico. He wrote Grant, "I feel as bitter as you do about this meddling of Napoleon, but we can bide our time and not punish ourselves by picking up a burden [the French] can't afford to carry."

27 New York Herald, January 3, 1867; New York Evening Post, January 8, 1867; Frederick W. Seward, Reminiscences of a War-time Statesman and Diplomat (New York and London, 1916), pp. 348-55. Seward's project, a very closely kept secret, was the acquisition of a harbor in San Domingo. A treaty was later concluded but buried by the Senate.



(from page 90)
his intention to remain. Sherman and Campbell were facng a dilemma, in that they could not reach Juarez without crossing territory held by the Imperialists, with whom they were supposed to have nothing to do. Sherman invited Grant to instruct him to go to Mexico City to see Bazaine, who, he was sure, would tell him the truth about French intentions, but nothing came of this suggestion. Wrote the general of the colorful pen and the fervid dislike of politics: "I am as anxious to find Juarez as Japhet was to find his father, that I may dispose of this mission." 26
Tension mounted in Washington early in January as the Senate prepared for a debate on the Mexican question, and a wide variety of reports circulated, the most ominous being that half of the French forces were to remain in Mexico through the summer, and that Assistant Secretary of State Frederick W. Seward, who had sailed mysteriously from Annapolis on Christmas day, was on his way to see Napoleon. (He was en route to the West Indies on one of his father's projects for the purchase of territory.) 27 But on January 12, before the Senate got around to the Mexican question, the War Department received a message from Sheridan at New Orleans transmitting the following telegram:

Paris Jany 10th
French Consul New Orleans
for General Cast[elnau] at Mexico.

Received your dispatch of the ninth December. Do not compel the Emperor to abdicate, but do not delay the departure of the troops; bring back all those who will not remain there. Most of the fleet has left.


NAPOLEON.
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26 Sherman to Grant, December 1 and 7, 1866. Sherman, despite his reputation for hard-headedness, was not one of those who favored military action by the United States in Mexico. He wrote Grant, "I feel as bitter as you do about this meddling of Napoleon, but we can bide our time and not punish ourselves by picking up a burden [the French] can't afford to carry."

27 New York Herald, January 3, 1867; New York Evening Post, January 8, 1867; Frederick W. Seward, Reminiscences of a War-time Statesman and Diplomat (New York and London, 1916), pp. 348-55. Seward's project, a very closely kept secret, was the acquisition of a harbor in San Domingo. A treaty was later concluded but buried by the Senate.




CONFIDENTIAL
Napoleon III's "Bring the army home" message, and the one by which General Sheridan transmitted it in translation to General Grant. The notation on the Sheridan-to-Grant message "Recd 230 PM In cipher" refers to its receipt and decipherment in the War Department, and so does not bear on Sheridan's later assertion that Napoleon's message was sent in cipher.

The phrase "will not remain there" was a translation error. It was corrected to "are not willing to remain" when Sheridan forwarded a confirmation copy of his telegram by mail later on January 12. "Most of the fleet has left" (referring to the departure of transports for Mexico) would have been better translated "Most of the ships have left."

Here now was a conclusive answer to both of the pressing questions, the French evacuation and Maximilian's future. The entire French force must be leaving; else there would scarcely be a question of compelling Maximilian to abdicate. And with the French gone, Maximilian, even if he remained firm in his decision to keep the throne, could hardly stand against the rising Liberals very long. The European threat to American soil could be considered virtually at an end.


How It Happened

Because of the historical importance attaching to the interception of this message and the Mexico-to-Paris message of a month earlier, the circumstances surrounding the interception are worth examining.

The two telegrams owed their existence to the successful installation of the Atlantic cable a few months before. The cable's own history went back to August 1857, when the first attempt to lay it ended in failure. A year later a connection was completed and the cable was operated for eleven weeks before it went dead, apparently because the use of a very high voltage had broken down the insulation. Renewal of the attempt awaited the development of better electrical techniques and the end of the Civil War. In 1865 a new cable was laid from Valentia, Ireland, but was lost six hundred miles short of Newfoundland. Another was started July 13, 1866, and brought ashore at Heart's Content, Newfoundland, on July 27. The ill-starred steamer Great Eastern, which laid it, then picked up the buried end of the 1865 cable and ran a second line to Newfoundland. Service to the public opened August 26.28

Thus Napoleon's September message to Bazaine passed after the permanent operation of a telegraph line across the Atlantic had been a reality for only a few weeks, and it must be conceded that the United States was reasonably prompt in availing itself of this source of intelligence -despite Napoleon's opinion to the contrary.
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28 Robert Luther Thompson, Wiring a Continent (Princeton, 1947), pp. 299-301, 319-20, 323, 433-34; S. A. Garnham and Robert L. Hadfield, The Submarine Cable (London, 1934), pp. 19-40. The cable laying was the only success in the long career of the leviathan Great Eastern, which bankrupted a succession of owners as a passenger and cargo ship, as an exhibition ship, and finally as a gigantic dismantling and salvage operation. Its history is told by James Dugan in The Great Iron Ship (New York, 1953).



Although the first interception took place only a month after the French Emperor had virtually invited this government to read his mail, it appears that Napoleon's suggestion had nothing to do with it. The author of the intercept scheme, in all probability, was General Sheridan, and it is highly unlikely that Napoleon's remarks would have been communicated to him. In any case, no instructions for surveillance of the telegraph lines to obtain French messages appear in the correspondence to the Gulf Department from Army Headquarters.29

Years later Sheridan explained how the job was done: his telegraph operator and cipher clerk, Charles A. Keefer, one of the numerous Canadians who entered the Union and Confederate telegraph services, had succeeded in "getting possession of the telegraph and managing [a] secret line," 30 which presumably connected his office with the Western Union wires in New Orleans.

Keefer's "secret line" may not have been so remarkable a thing as Sheridan's cryptic account makes it seem, for there was a high degree of integration between the Military Telegraph system to which Keefer belonged and the commercial system over which the messages passed. Throughout the occupied areas of the South during and after the Civil War, the Military Telegraph service took over commercial and railroad telegraph facilities wherever they existed. These Military Telegraph offices accepted commercial as well as government business, and commercial offices of course sent and received thousands of military telegrams; many a telegraph circuit had a military office at one terminus and a commercial office at the other.

As the Reconstruction period advanced, this integration became even closer; when the wires were returned to the use of the companies that owned them, Military Telegraph officers remained on duty to take care of government business and exercise a loose kind of supervision over the commercial operations. At some places military and commercial operators worked side
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29 Correspondence from August 1 to December 10, 1866, has been examined for evidence of such instructions. Sheridan's papers in the Library of Congress appear to be incomplete for this period.

30 Unaddressed official statement signed by Sheridan December 8, 1877 (sic). William R. Plum, The Military Telegraph During the Civil War in the United States (2 vols.,Chicago, 1882), II, pp. 343 and 357, is authority for the information on Keefer's nationality.






by side. The fact that Keefer's copies of the French telegrams were written on Western Union message blanks makes it appear that New Orleans was one of the cities where this arrangement was in effect. If it was not, and the Military Telegraph and Western Union offices there were located separately, they were nevertheless using the same wires for communication with distant points, which would have made it comparatively easy for Keefer to connect a "secret line."

This integration of operations went all the way to the top of the two telegraph systems. General Thomas T. Eckert, who had been the second-ranking member and active head of the Military Telegraph service, continued to be closely connected with it after becoming Assistant Secretary of War in 1866. In the period now under study Eckert was apparently occupying his War Department position and at the same time resuming his activities in the industry as Eastern Division superintendent for Western Union at New York.31

Sheridan also credited Keefer with having solved the French "cipher," 32 but there is strong evidence to the contrary :

(1) The amount of material Keefer could have had to work with was very small. The cable in its early years was used sparingly because of the very high tolls (note the $1,979.25 charge, in gold, that the French Consulate paid for the December 3/9 message). Thus Paris was still awaiting word from Castelnau at the end of November,33 although he had been in Mexico nearly two months. The only French messages referred to in any of the documents examined in the present study are the clear-text message that Napoleon said he sent Bazaine in September,34 the message of December 3/9, and the message of January 10. Accordingly, as the January message (to be discussed in detail below) was almost certainly sent in the clear,
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31Plum, op. cit., II, pp. 345-48. The War Department records for 1866 and 1867 contain frequent cipher telegrams to Secretary Stanton from Eckert in New York; some of these messages bear dates subsequent to Eckert's resignation from the Department.

32 From Sheridan's statement of December 8, 1877, and his Memoirs, vol. II, p. 226.

33 Bigelow to Seward, November 30, 1866.

34 This message has not been found by the writer in either French or United States records available in Washington.


it is highly probable that the December 3/9 message from Bazaine and Castelnau to Napoleon was the only encrypted French telegram that passed between Mexico and France during the entire period of the French intervention.35 It is extremely unlikely that the code - for the message was in code and not cipher -could have been solved from this one message of eighty-eight groups.

(2) An examination of all available United States records that could reasonably be expected to contain such an item (if it existed) fails to uncover a decrypted version of the December 3/9 message or any other evidence that the government during the ensuing weeks had come into possession of the information it contained36

Somewhat surprising is the apparent fact that Sheridan did not send the message to the War Department cryptographers for study. On several occasions during the Civil War, these men had been able to read enemy messages referred to them. This experience (so far as it is recorded) was, however, limited to the solution of certain ciphers (some of which were relatively complex for that day) ,37 and the French code would have presented them with a strange and much more difficult problem. Union cryptographers at New Orleans had also once solved a captured message,38 a fact which may have induced Sheridan to rely on his own headquarters' capability and not turn to Washington.
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35 This message and the French version of the January 10 message are filed in the National Archives with telegrams sent from the military headquarters at New Orleans during the years 1864-69. This filing is clearly in error, for the messages are foreign to the rest of the material in this file and they bear none of the marks that an operator would have placed on them had he transmitted them. War Department and Army Headquarters records do not show their receipt.

36 Besides the government records cited elsewhere, the following collections have been searched for such evidence: the Andrew Johnson MSS, Sheridan MSS, Grant MSS, Edwin M. Stanton MSS, all in the Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress, and the contemporary correspondence between the War Department and State Department in the National Archives. Despite the extreme improbability that the message contents were obtained by solving the French code, this search took account of the possibility that the developments reported in the message were learned by other means.





It was the January 10 message from Napoleon, the only message mentioned in Sheridan's account of this episode, that the general said Keefer had solved. But there is every reason to believe that the French clear-text of this message is the message as received in New Orleans, and not a decoded version of that message. Note:

(1) The message heading. It is filled out in precisely the way that was standard procedure in telegraphic reception at that period. A considerably different format was used for the delivery of plain-text versions of friendly messages received in cipher, and since Keefer was also a Military Telegraph cipher clerk, he would probably have used that format or a similar one in writing up the plain text of a foreign cipher or code message. (This format is illustrated by the photostat of the deciphered version of Sheridan's January 12 message, of which Napoleon's message of the 10th was a part.)

(2) The difficulties that the copyist had with French spellings (Castelnau, décembre, forcez, abdiquer, navires). These are the difficulties of a telegraph operator receiving in a strange language. A cryptographer in writing up a decoded message would scarcely have made so many false strokes and misspellings; and with such a poor knowledge of the French language, he could scarcely have solved a coded message in French.

In addition to the above evidence, there is the extreme unlikelihood that this message added to the earlier one would have given Keefer enough material to have solved the code. There is also reason to believe, from Napoleon's statement to Bigelow regarding the message he sent Bazaine in September,
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37 The Confederates used two kinds of cipher, both involving the substitution of one character for another. What appears to be a representative if not a complete account of the cryptanalytic experiences of the Washington cryptographers is given by David Homer Bates, Lincoln in the Telegraph Office (New York, 1907), pp. 66-85. Bates was in the War Department telegraph and cipher office throughout the Civil War. The infrequency of such activity was plainly the result of the difficulty in obtaining intercepts (except at the front, where the traffic intercepted was almost always visual). All the cryptanalytic episodes reported by Bates involved intercepted courier and mail dispatches rather than messages obtained by wiretapping.

38 Plum, op. cit., I, pp. 36-39.




that political considerations might well have induced the Emperor to send this message through the United States in the clear.

Impact and Epilogue

Rare indeed is the single intelligence item that is at once so important and so unmistakable in meaning as the intercept of January 10. Its effect on events, however, can only be estimated, for no reference to it appears in the records of the developments that followed.

On the 17th the French Minister came to Seward proposing that France and the United States enter into an agreement for the governing of Mexico during the period that would follow the departure of the French troops. France's only stipulation was that the interim government exclude Juárez. The United States, having consistently pursued a policy of recognition of Juárez and non-recognition of Maximilian, could never have voluntarily accepted such a proposal. And since southern Texas was well garrisoned with troops remaining from the magnificent army that had subdued the Confederacy, involuntary acceptance was likewise out of the question. But Seward might reasonably have entertained the proposal and then engaged in time-consuming negotiations, awaiting news from Mexico that the French were gone. Instead, he dismissed Napoleon's Minister with little ceremony; 39 his firmness probably stemmed largely from knowledge that the French withdrawal was already well advanced and the Emperor's proposal could be only an effort to save face.

The effect that Sheridan's communications intelligence enterprise had on international affairs, then, was probably this: it did not induce a change in policy or any other positive action, but it materially helped the government ride out a dangerous situation simply by sitting tight.

The Administration's domestic position, however, was as weak as its international position was strong. When the Senate on the 15th got around to its foreign policy debate, an earnest effort was made to embarrass the Administration (although the threatened attempt to take foreign policy out
_______
39 Seward to Minister Berthemy, January 21, 1865 (memorandum of conversation of January 17).





of its hands did not materialize). The debate continued into the 16th, when Senator Charles Sumner, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, saw fit to announce that he had reliable information (including a copy of a dispatch to the State Department from the United States Consul at Vera Cruz) that the French were withdrawing. That ended the matter.40 Neither Seward nor the President seems to have said anything to counter the unfriendly speechmaking, having in Sumner a more direct means of silencing the opposition. Although the senator was no friend of the Administration, at least some of its intelligence information had been given to him for that purpose. From the conviction with which Sumner addressed his colleagues, one is tempted to believe that intelligence much more sensitive - and more convincing - than the consular dispatch had been confided to him.

Seward's ability to close out the Mexican affair with firmness and sure handedness must have substantially bolstered the Presidential prestige, which in that year was at the lowest ebb it has reached in the nation's history. Had the government's resistance to the French intervention been anything but a resounding success, Andrew Johnson might well have failed to muster the one-vote margin by which the impeachment proceedings against him were defeated.

Before January ended, the intelligence conveyed by Napoleon's cablegram was supported by details of the French withdrawal received from other sources, one of them an unnamed spy who was sent by Sheridan to the Vera Cruz area and returned with convincing evidence of preparations for the embarkation of the Army.41 Bazaine led the last remnants of the French force out of Mexico City on February 5. Two weeks later embarkation had begun at Vera Cruz, and by March 11 it was complete.

Maximilian's regime quickly collapsed. He foolishly bottled up his small army of Mexicans, Austrians, and Belgians in Querétaro, a hundred miles northwest of the capital. An agent
________
40 Congressional Globe, January 16, 1867.

41 Sheridan to J. A. Rawlins (Chief of Staff to Grant), January 4, 1867. The ordinary period for transmittal of mail would have caused this dispatch to arrive in Washington perhaps a week later than the January 10 telegram from Paris via New Orleans.


of Sheridan, with this army by permission, late in February reported the Imperialists marching out of Querétaro and driving the enemy before them, but the offensive was short-lived. Soon Maximilian was back in Querétaro under siege, and on May 19, as a result of treachery by a Mexican Imperialist officer related by marriage to Bazaine, the garrison was captured. 42

Seward had literally "scolded Napoleon out of Mexico," but if the final issue of l'affaire Maximilien was a triumph for American diplomacy, the fate of the unhappy sovereign himself was a sorry story of nonperformance of duty by an American diplomat. After Sherman had been excused from further participation in the mission, Minister Campbell stationed himself at New Orleans and determinedly resisted repeated efforts by Seward to get him into Mexico. In April, when it had become plain that the siege of Querétaro would end in the capture of Maximilian, Seward sent an urgent plea for Maximilian's life, instructing Campbell to find Juárez and deliver the message in person. It was delivered to the head of the Mexican government not by Campbell, ex-colonel, ex-senator, but by James White, sergeant. Such pleas delivered later on by a diplomatic Chief of Mission were heeded, but this one was of no avail, and Maximilian lost his life before a firing squad at Querétaro on June 19, 1867. Four days earlier, too late to affect the fate of the misguided prince, Seward had given Campbell a new title: ex-Minister. 43
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42 Martin, op. cit., 295-97; unsigned letter to Sheridan from his agent in Querétaro, February 26.

43 New York Herald, December 7, 1866; Seward to Campbell, December 25, 1866, January 2, 8, 23, April 6, June 1, 5, 8, 11, 15, 1867; Campbell to Seward, December 24, 1866, January 2, 7, February 9, March 12, and June 3, 6, 10, 15, and 16, 1867; Martin, op. cit., pp. 408, 411; Sheridan, op. cit., II, p. 227.

Lincoln-Juarez,version de Larouche

Proponentes del Sistema Americano emergieron en México en los 1840, dirigidos por el colbertista Esteban de Antuñano, aliado de la lucha continua de Henry Clay en los EU. Estudioso de las políticas proteccionistas de Alexander Hamilton y Federico List, Antuñano escribió un plan detallado para la industrialización del país en su Plan económico político de México, de 1845, seguido por su Plan platónico para hacer feliz a México, bajo el régimen federal, por semejanza en mucho con los Estados Unidos de América, de 1846. Pero al año siguiente su país se hundió en la guerra.

Lincoln versus los traidores y sus guerras
Los banqueros nororientales y los esclavistas sureños se unieron en el Partido Demócrata para controlar la política estadounidense durante casi todo el período de 1829–60, empezando con el régimen de Andrew Jackson (los banqueros británicos empezaron a ejercer una poderosa influencia directa en el distrito financiero de Wall Street en Nueva York: August Belmont llegó a los EU en 1837 en representación de los Rothschild). La pandilla banquero–esclavista le declaró la guerra a México (1846–48), y poco después dieron media vuelta y le lanzaron la guerra a los propios Estados Unidos, con la rebelión sureña.

El esclavista de Tennessee James J. Polk, ganó la Presidencia de los EU en 1844; el Partido Whig reveló que la Asociación de Libre Cambio británica financió la campaña de Polk. Éste consiguió la declaración de guerra del Congreso, mintiéndole al decir que México había invadido Texas. El régimen de Polk de inmediato hizo un acuerdo secreto con la Gran Bretaña para cederle lo que hoy es la Columbia Británica, parte el territorio de Oregón que estaba entonces en disputa, a cambio de apoyar la guerra contra México.

El ex presidente John Quincy Adams, que en ese entonces se desempeñaba en el Congreso, instó a sacar por completo a la Gran Bretaña de Norteamérica, y exigió la paz con la hermana república de México. Henry Clay, que estaba retirado, tildó la ofensiva contra México de guerra de "agresión insultante" y de "rapacidad". El joven congresista Abraham Lincoln, un whig junto con Adams y Clay, presentó ante el Congreso la "resolución de sitio", probando que Polk había mentido, y exigiendo que dijera el sitio preciso en el que México supuestamente había invadido a los EU.

Cuando Lincoln ganó la Presidencia en 1860, la crisis de la secesión sureña comenzaba. El régimen saliente de Buchanan era tan traicionero, que el presidente mexicano Benito Juárez, líder de los liberales, envió a su embajador Matías Romero a reunirse en secreto con Lincoln (que se sabía era favorable a los mexicanos) en Illinois, antes de que tomara posesión. Romero le dijo a Lincoln que el Gobierno mexicano estaba bajo ataque del "clero y el ejército. . . por sostener los privilegios e influencia que gozaban durante del régimen colonial".

Romero escribió en su diario: "Le dije que México se había congratulado mucho con el triunfo del partido republicano, porque esperaba que la política de ese partido sería más leal y amistosa, y no como la del democrático que se ha reducido a quitarle a México su territorio para extender la esclavitud".

Lincoln "me preguntó cuál era la condición de los peones. . . pues había oído decir que estaban en una verdadera esclavitud y quedó muy complacido cuando le dije que los abusos sólo existían en pocos lugares y que eran contrarios a la ley".

Lincoln "me dijo. . . que durante su administración procurará hacer todo lo que esté a su alcance en favor de los intereses de México, que se le hará entera justica en todo lo que ocurra y que se le considerará como una nación amiga y hermana. Me agregó que no creía que nada pudiera hacerlo cambiar de este propósito".

El primer ministro británico lord Palmerston saludó a la reina Victoria el 1 de enero de 1861, celebrando "la pronta y casi lograda disolución de la gran confederación nordista en América". Entonces, Gran Bretaña, la Francia de Napoleón III y España invadieron México, mientras los EU estaban enfrascados en la guerra Civil. Esto permitió usar a México como una ruta de contrabando de pertrechos de guerra de la Gran Bretaña y Francia para la Confederación esclavista. Cuando impusieron al austríaco Maximiliano de Habsburgo como Emperador de México, los EU no pudieron hacer nada militarmente para ayudar a la guerra de resistencia del presidente Juárez. Pero cuando la Confederación se rindió, los EU movilizaron tropas hacia la frontera mexicana, abastecieron de armas a Juárez, y la independencia de México fue restaurada.

Gran Bretaña aprovechó la confusión que siguió inmediatamente después del asesinato de Lincoln en 1865, orquestando la genocida guerra de la Triple Alianza de 1865–70 contra Paraguay, acabando con 40 años de un sorprendente progreso educativo, industrial y de la infraestructura, basado en el Sistema Americano. El grado de desarrollo que se había alcanzado en esa nación fue tal, que el cónsul estadounidense Edward Augustus Hopkins describió a Paraguay como "la nación más unida, más rica y más fuerte del Nuevo Mundo".

La creación de un Nuevo Mundo
Sin embargo, los programas económicos del Gobierno de Lincoln, rebasando por mucho las necesidades inmediatas del período de guerra, siguieron maravillando y mejorando a la humanidad por una generación después de su asesinato. Los ferrocarriles financiados por el Gobierno, el bloqueo arancelario a la importación de bienes británicos hechos con mano de obra barata, las tierras agrícolas gratuitas, las universidades gratuitas y la emisión de crédito público, acarrearon un aumento inmenso del empleo y de la fuerza productiva de los EU, y de nuevas industrias, a una escala que empequeñeció a la antigua potencia, la Gran Bretaña imperial. Japón, Alemania y Rusia botaron los métodos británicos y adoptaron el prodigiosamente exitoso Sistema Americano.

El complejo industrial y científico nacionalista de Filadelfia siguió siendo el centro de la planificación estratégica estadounidense. Los escritos y la influencia política del economista Henry C. Carey llegaron a todos los países, en abierto desafío al eje de Londres con los banqueros de Wall Street en Nueva York, en tanto sus socios ferrocarrileros de Pensilvania construyeron las máquinas, las acerías y la infraestructura de los EU.

Con Matías Romero como intermediario del Gobierno de Juárez y de los que le siguieron, los filadelfios planificaron e iniciaron la construcción de una red ferroviaria nacional en México. William J. Palmer, un general de caballería que recibió la Medalla de Honor en la guerra Civil estadounidese, y que era socio del Ferrocarril de Pensilvania, diseñó los Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México en 1872›73. Al tiempo que se construían las primeras líneas, los miembros del equipo de Palmer organizaron y financiaron la "fábrica de inventos" de Thomas Alva Edison en Nueva Jersey; y George Barker, el científico en jefe del Instituto Franklin, asesoró a Edison en el desarrollo de la luz eléctrica, que llevó a la creación de centrales eléctricas públicas en todo el mundo.

De hecho, se construyeron miles de kilómetros de vías férreas en México, conforme los planes de Palmer.

Los aliados mexicanos de este desarrollo incluyeron a Carlos de Olaguíbel, quien se unió a Juárez y Matías Romero y atacó las teorías de Jeremy Bentham y Adam Smith. Olaguíbel advirtió en su libro de 1875, El proteccionismo en México, que el sistema maltusiano que le impusieron al país es "fatal, porque impide el acrecentamiento de la población, ese acrecentamiento de que tanto necesitamos, y que tendrá que mantenerse aun cuando se aumente demasiado, siempre que se proteja la industria".

Pero sobre el camino, la guerra financiera encabezada por J.P. Morgan de Wall Street llevó a Palmer a la quiebra y debilitó el poder de sus socios. Wall Street se apoderó de los ferrocarriles mexicanos, a medio construir, y empezó a desmantelar todo el programa de construcción nacional.

El Gobierno nacionalista de Perú trajo al estadounidense Henry Meiggs para construir el primer proyecto ferroviario a gran escala de Sudamérica, de 1868 a principios de los 1870, al parejo de los esfuerzos de Brasil, en los que participó el ingeniero estadounidense W. Milnor Roberts. Lincoln había restablecido la relación —rota por el presidente Buchanan— con el Perú, y los ingenieros estadounidenses empezaron a entrar.

Los peruanos planificaron que las líneas de Meiggs cruzarían la titánica cordillera de los Andes hacia Brasil y Argentina, y que los complejos acereros y manufactureros peruanos abastecerían al continente unificado de las herramientas necesarias para la modernización. El ferrocarril, el primero de su clase en el mundo, entró a los Andes, pero los inmisericordes ataques financieros internacionales evitaron su terminación transcontinental. Perú y Meiggs fueron llevados a la bancarrota.

Los británicos usaron entonces a su Estado cliente, Chile, dándole dinero y buques de guerra para lanzar una invasión que destruyera al Perú. El secretario de Estado estadounidense James G. Blaine vino al rescate de Perú por medios diplomáticos y de otro tipo en esta guerra del Pacífico de 1879–81. Empezaban a ganar la guerra, cuando asesinaron al presidente estadounidense James Garfield y destituyeron a Blaine. Perú quedó a merced del saqueo de una dictadura directa de los banqueros que la redujo a una pobreza bestial, destruyendo 30 años de logros magníficos de cuatro presidentes peruanos. A Blaine lo forzaron a comparecer ante audiencias del Congreso sobre "corrupción", que presidió Perry Belmont, hijo del representante estadounidense de los Rothschild, August Belmont. Blaine presentó un valiente testimonio en el que denunció que el ataque contra Perú era una operación británica para beneficio de las finanzas londinenses.

Blaine tuvo otra oportunidad como secretario de Estado de 1889 hasta su muerte en 1892. Él desarrolló el concepto de "reciprocidad" proteccionista con otras naciones del hemisferio, en equilibrio comercial para crear de forma premeditada industrias de alta calidad, con buenos salarios, de forma simultánea en todos los países. También impulsó planes para construir ferrocarrilles que unieran a América del Norte y del Sur.

En los últimos 25 años del siglo 19, hubo un resurgimiento de las políticas del Sistema Americano por toda Iberoamérica. Los Gobiernos de Carlos Pellegrini y Vicente Fidel López en Argentina (1890–92), de José Manuel Balmaceda en Chile (1886–91), de Rafael Núñez en Colombia (presidente en 1880–82, 1884–86 y 1887–88), y del naciente grupo de proteccionistas en Brasil, ejemplificados por Ruy Barbosa, ministro de Finanzas de la recién creada República en 1891, buscaban transformar sus naciones con políticas proteccionistas asociadas con Hamilton, Federico List y Henry Carey.

La Comisión Ferroviaria Intercontinental, creada por Blaine, empleó ingenieros del Ejército estadounidense para levantar planos y planificar líneas que unieran a los EU hasta Argentina y Brasil, y le presentó un mapa completo del proyecto al Presidente William McKinley en 1898. McKinley celebró los planes de Blaine como el futuro de la humanidad, en un discurso que dio en 1901 en la exposición panamericana de Búfalo, en donde fue asesinado.

A McKinley lo reemplazó su vicepresidente y rival político, Theodor "Teddy" Roosevelt, quien puso fin a las relaciones estadounidenses de la era de Lincoln con Iberoamérica. La facción financiera transatlántica de Teddy fraguó este golpe desde antes, en 1898, imponiéndole al presidente McKinley una guerra que no quería emprender en contra de España, con la conquista de Cuba, Puerto Rico y las Filipinas.

Las fuerzas pro estadounidenses en el sur no se daban por vencidas, aunque los antiamericanos habían tomado al Gobierno estadounidense. En diciembre de 1902, en una famosa nota diplomática enviada a Teddy Roosevelt en respuesta al cobro forzoso, a punta de cañoneros, de la deuda venezolana, por parte de los acreedores británicos, alemanes e italianos, el ministro de Relaciones Exteriores argentino Luis María Drago reafirmó la primacía de la Doctrina Monroe:

"Entre los principios fundamentales del derecho público internacional que la humanidad ha consagrado, es uno de los más preciosos el que determina que todos los Estados, cualquiera que sea la fuerza de que dispongan, son entidades de derecho, perfectamente iguales entre sí y recíprocamente acreedoras por ello a las mismas consideraciones y respeto.

"Pero el cobro compulsivo e inmediato [de la deuda], en un momento dado, por medio de la fuerza, no traería otra cosa que la ruina de las naciones más debiles y la absorción de su gobierno con todas las facultades que le son inherentes por los fuertes de la tierra. Otros son los principios proclamados en este continente de América. `Los contratos entre una nación y los individuos particulares son obligatorios según la conciencia del soberano, y no pueden ser objeto de fuerza compulsiva', decía el ilustre Hamilton. `No confieren derecho alguno de acción fuera de la voluntad soberana'. . .

"Tal situación aparece contrariando visiblemente los principios muchas veces proclamados por las naciones de América y muy particularmente la doctrina de Monroe, con tanto celo sostenida y defendida en todo tiempo por los EU".

Pero Teddy ni siquiera respondió a la carta de Drago. En 1905 Teddy Roosevelt canceló la Doctrina Monroe, al anunciar un "corolario": los EU pueden invadir a las naciones del hemisferio a voluntad para cobrar deudas y con propósitos similares. Y esta perversidad cobró forma en repetidas ocasiones, en lo que el mundo llamó la "diplomacia del dólar".

Con Teddy, J.P. Morgan de Wall Street terminó de tomar y monopolizar las principales industrias de los EU —ferrocarriles, acerías, empresas eléctricas— que habían construido los adversarios nacionalistas de Wall Street.

Pero ciertos métodos y objetivos del siglo 19 no podían ser aplastados con tanta facilidad.

Edward J. Doheny desarrolló de forma independiente el petróleo de California en los 1890, después de que Pensilvania creara la industria petrolera, y que los Rockefeller y los financieros británicos se apresuraran a quedarse con ella. Por su cuenta, Doheny fue a México en 1900 para empezar ahí la producción de petróleo, de manera que los ferrocarriles propuestos para el hemisferio pudieran funcionar de forma eficiente con petróleo, en vez de hacerlo con carbón importado.

Doheny y otros esbozaron la creación de un vasto complejo industrial y de infraestructura para vincular a los estados del Pacífico de los EU, Iberoamérica y el Lejano Oriente. Un consorcio organizado por Doheny, vinculado al presidente estadounidense entrante Warren Harding, negoció un acuerdo con el líder soviético Vladimir Lenin en 1920 para desarrollar el petróleo y el carbón de Siberia, y exportar hacia Rusia 3 mil millones de dólares en equipo ferroviario y otros bienes de capital. Esto hubiera llevado al nuevo régimen soviético a restaurar la rota alianza ruso–estadounidense.

En noviembre de 1920, un grupo de empresarios de Caifornia asistió a la toma de posesión del presidente mexicano Álvaro Obregón, un revolucionario nacionalista a quien el Gobierno estadounidense rehusó reconocer como presidente. Los californianos buscaban restaurar la alianza de desarrollo entre México y los EU que Teddy Roosevelt y sus patrocinadores depredadores habían roto.

La corriente, favorable al Sistema Americano, de Esteban de Antuñano y Carlos de Olaguíbel del período de 1840–70 en México, se había mantenido directamente, llevándola a la Revolución Mexicana de 1910, y se expresaba en la idea del "Estado intervencionista" que más tarde defendieran Obregón y su ministro de Finanzas Alberto J. Pani.

El programa de Pani subrayó la necesidad de tener un Estado dirigista para conducir la industrialización. Pani señaló que "la maravillosa historia de transformación japonesa durante la revolución Meiji" debería reproducirse en México, es decir, la forma en que Japón se deshizo del feudalismo e impulsó el patrocinio gubernamental de la industria pesada.

Obregón, en su Manifiesto a la Nación donde anunciaba su candidatura el 25 de junio de 1927, dijo:

"Debemos ser sumamente cautos con las inversiones que en nuestro territorio pretendan realizar los intereses imperialistas de Wall Street y dar toda clase de facilidades compatibles con nuestras leyes al capital industrial comercial y agrícola, que del vecino país quiera venir a cooperar con nosotros al desarrollo y explotación de nuestros recursos naturales, para que así podamos ser más conocidos por el capital honesto de la vecina república, que será siempre nuestro aliado para dar a conocer la verdad en su propia nacionalidad, cuando los intereses absorbentes de Wall Street pretendan tergiversar la verdad para provocar conflictos y crisis internacionales entre la cancillería de ambos países como ha ocurrido en repetidas ocasiones".

El presidente Harding murió en 1923 en circunstancias misteriosas. Doheny y otros simpatizantes de Harding, que tenían un poder independiente de Rockefeller y Wall Street, fueron enjuiciados con una trampa armada en torno a unas concesiones petroleras supuestamente ilícitas, conocido como el escándalo del "Teapot Dome", y la mayoría de sus empresas fueron destruidas. Los EU entraron luego a un período de especulación desenfrenada e imperio del crimen organizado, en tanto los banqueros de Londres y Wall Street promovieron el ascenso al poder de regímenes fascistas.

Lincoln and Juarez

Alex Orozco
Chicago

If we're looking for a true "Lincoln," one who resembled the Emancipator in spirit as well as in his political role, it is instructive to look at the life and career of Benito Juárez. Outwardly, they were a quintessential "odd couple," as dissimilar in appearance and ethnic background as two people can be. Lincoln was tall and angular; Juárez short and stocky. Lincoln was of old American stock; Juárez a full-blooded Indian.
The similarities were in chronology and background. Lincoln lived between 1809-1865 and Juárez between 1806-1872. Both were born poor, both cared more for political power than riches, and both believed law was the best preparation for a political career. Though neither was conventionally handsome, both compensated for a lack of matinee idol looks by radiating an impressive charisma and commanding presence. Though they never met personally, they formed a lifetime mutual admiration society and helped each other whenever they could. Instances of their interaction will be recorded as this narrative develops.

Juárez was born on March 21, 1806, in the Oaxaca village of San Pablo Gueletao. His parents, members of the Zapotec tribe prevalent in Oaxaca, were small farmers. When he came to Oaxaca City at the age of thirteen, he could neither read, write nor speak Spanish. His destination was the house of the Maza family, where his sister worked as a servant. Sr. Maza, head of the household, not only took in the boy but showed an interest in his development. A friend of Maza was Antonio Salanueva, a devout Catholic and lay member of the Franciscan order. Salanueva taught the boy reading, writing, arithmetic, Spanish grammar and bookbinding. Both older men were so impressed with Benito's aptitude that they sent him to the Franciscan seminary in Oaxaca with the idea of turning him into a priest. Though young Juárez immersed himself in the study of Aquinas and other great Catholic philosophers, he decided in the end that his career lay in law rather than religion. Graduating from the seminary in 1827, he entered the Institute of Science and Art, emerging with a law degree in 1834. During this period he was reading works by the rationalist philosophers of the Enlightenment. In the end, he became completely imbued with their secular doctrines and abandoned the Catholic faith of his early days.

All this time Juárez was interested in politics. Between 1831-33, even before receiving his law degree, he served as a city councilman in Oaxaca and was a strong defender of Indian rights. In 1841 he became a civil judge and two years later married Margarita Maza, the daughter of his patron. After a stint as a federal deputy, he served as governor of Oaxaca between 1847-52. Though he took no part in the war with the United States, he did support a controversial measure in the legislature calling for the confiscation of church lands. Finishing his term as governor, he became director of his alma mater, the Institute of Science and Art.

The dictator Antonio López de Santa Anna returned to power in 1853 and Juárez was one of a group of liberals expelled from the country. Arriving in New Orleans in October 1853, he joined forces with such kindred spirits as Melchor Ocampo and José Guadalupe Montenegro to organize a Revolutionary Junta aimed at the overthrow of Santa Anna. During this period of exile, Juárez supported himself by working in a cigarette factory.

In March 1854 the liberal General Juan Alvarez and other activists proclaimed the Plan de Ayutla, a manifesto calling for the overthrow of Santa Anna. Returning from New Orleans, Juárez joined the widespread liberation movement that drove Santa Anna into exile in the fall of 1854. Alvarez's troops marched into Mexico City November 14 and the general took over as president, with Juárez serving as his minister of justice. In that post, he produced the "Juárez Law," one abolishing clerical immunity by limiting jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts to ecclesiastical cases.

In December 1855 Alvarez stepped down in favor of Ignacio Comonfort, a moderate who had been a collector of customs in Acapulco. 1856 saw Juárez serving again as governor of Oaxaca. There he re-established the Institute of Science and Art, suppressed under Santa Anna. On February 5, 1857, a new constitution was adopted which further restricted the privileges of the Church. In November of that year Juárez was named minister of the interior and the following month he was elevated to chief justice of the Supreme Court.

The new constitution greatly displeased the conservatives and clericals. In December 1857 a right-wing general named Félix Zuloaga led a coup in which Congress was dissolved and Juárez arrested. Comonfort, more a centrist than a liberal, was intimidated into approving Zuloaga's action. Then Zuloaga deposed him and assumed the presidency himself. An angry Comonfort released Juárez, who escaped to Querétaro January 11. Eight days later, in Guanajuato, he proclaimed himself president. Under the Mexican constitution, the chief justice of the Supreme Court is next in line for the presidency if the chief executive dies or is unlawfully removed from office.

Thus began the bloody, fratricidal Reform War of 1858-61, pitting liberals against conservatives and so named because of the Reform Laws that had curbed the power of the Church. The Liberals almost lost their leader two months after the conflict began. In March Zuloaga's forces entered Guadalajara and captured Juárez near the Palace of Justice. He was saved from a firing squad only through intervention of the poet Guillermo Prieto, who courageously thrust himself in front of Juárez, crying: "Brave men do not assassinate." The soldiers lowered their rifles and Juárez was able to escape to Manzanillo, where he re-kindled resistance.

In the beginning, the rightists completely had their own way. They commanded most of the army and had by far the better generals. In fact, it wasn't until 1860 that the Liberals first defeated the Conservatives in a pitched battle at Silao. Three main factors led to the Liberals' eventual victory: popular support; control throughout the war of the port of Veracruz, from where customs fees gave them money to finance their war effort; the iron will and dogged, unwavering determination of Juárez. Like Lincoln, he suffered crushing early defeats but never lost hope.

While it is not known exactly when Juárez came to Lincoln's attention, we know that Lincoln was his strong supporter as early as 1857, eve of the Reform War. When Juárez had to flee Mexico City in 1858, Lincoln sent him a message expressing hope "for the liberty of .. your government and its people."

The bond between the two leaders was strengthened in 1861, the year the Civil War began. Juárez, then president of Mexico, had been forced by the financial toll of the Reform War to suspend debt payments to Mexico's chief European creditors, France, Britain and Spain. These powers organized a punitive expedition, seizing Veracruz, but Britain and Spain pulled out when they learned of Napoleon III's desire to install a puppet regime in Mexico City. The French, defeated at Puebla in 1862, poured in reinforcements and captured Mexico City in 1863. Evacuating the capital, Juárez organized resistance in the north.

Though Lincoln obviously had his hands full with the Civil War, he did what he could to help Juárez. Union General Phil Sheridan wrote in his journal that "we continued supplying arms and munitions to the liberals, sending as many as 30,000 muskets from Baton Rouge alone." To Sheridan came this order from General Grant, which of course originated with Lincoln: "Concentrate in all available points in the States an army strong enough to move against the invaders of Mexico."

How Juárez reciprocated Lincoln's friendly attitude is shown by his response to an ill-advised overture he received from the Confederate government. The South had sent a delegation, under John T. Pickett, to try and win over the juaristas. Juárez, to put it mildly, sent the Confederates a message -- throwing Pickett into a Mexico City jail for thirty days and then expelling him from the country.

Though Lincoln was dead by 1867, the year Juárez vanquished Maximilian, the initiatives he had put in place inexorably worked their way in ensuring victory for the juaristas. Louis Napoleon had sympathized with the South, but growing Union power made him stop short of granting recognition to the Confederacy. In 1867, with the Civil War over and the Union-backed juaristas growing in strength, Napoleon III pulled his troops out of Mexico and left Maximilian to his fate. Perhaps the greatest dividend attained by the informal but highly effective alliance between Abraham Lincoln and Benito Juárez was the way it served to ease the bitterness felt by Mexicans thanks to the disastrous consequences of the U.S.-Mexican War.

The ecstasy of Juárez's career came in the heroic years when he remained steadfast during the Reform War and the war against Maximilian; the agony came in the anticlimactic five years between 1867, when Maximilian was executed, and 1872, the year of his death. It is virtually axiomatic in history that a period of glory is followed by one of letdown and leaders who acquire an almost godlike status during the glory years are subject to a sharp and sudden downward revision of their image. Winston Churchill was an inspirational figure as he defied Hitler in the darkest days of the Second World War -- yet he was turned out of office within weeks of victory over Nazism.

In the flush of victory over Maximilian and his European sponsors, Juárez won the 1867 election by a wide margin. But he faced serious problems. Two devastating wars had left the treasury empty. There was an oversized army and resentment among the European powers over Maximilian's execution had shrunk investment capital and dried up markets.

Attempting to cope with the situation, Juárez adopted a policy of centralization. To weaken Congress, he used all his prestige to ram through a constitutional amendment that would add a Senate to the Chamber of Deputies. Another amendment, designed to further strengthen the executive branch, gave him the right to veto any bill, with a two-thirds majority required to override the veto.

To raise money for his bankrupt treasury, Juárez sold off lands that had been expropriated from the Church to hacendados (big landowners) who had supported the Liberal cause. There were more of those than one might think. Land stripped from the Church, instead of being distributed to the campesinos (peasant farmers), was sold to the highest bidder. So in many areas a peculiar situation prevailed where landowners supported the Liberals and campesinos -- religious by nature anyway -- the Conservatives. It should never be ignored that the juarista movement was far more directed against the Church and the Conservative-dominated army than against the landowners. And now, under Juárez, there was a new class consisting of Liberal hacendados and a Liberal-dominated officer corps. As for dispossessed peasants and former soldiers who had fought against Juárez, they were increasingly being driven into banditry. In 1868 it was estimated that over a thousand bandits were operating in the outskirts of Guadalajara.

In this chaotic situation, Juárez was increasingly plagued by uprisings. Some were mounted by peasants, some by Indians, and some by Liberal military chiefs who had become dissatisfied with the president.

In 1868 there were insurrections in central Mexico under the peasant leaders Plotino Rhodakanati and Julio López. The former claimed that Jesus Christ was "the divine socialist of humanity" and the latter advocated a socialist system "to destroy the present vicious state of exploitation." So Juárez, whose enemy had long been the Christian right, now faced a challenge from the Christian left. Though liberal and anticlerical, Juárez had never sympathized with socialism. So he had no compunction about sending federal troops against the rebels.

The most troublesome Indian insurgents were the Maya in the south and the Apache in the north. Following the caste wars of 1847-55, the Maya set up an independent state in southern Yucatan that endured until 1901. Their position was strengthened by their ability to buy arms in neighboring British Honduras. Apache attacks were triggered by westward movement of American settlers. As the U.S. pioneers acquired lands in the Southwest, the volume of Apache incursions into sparsely populated northern Mexico increased exponentially, Bands led by the famous Cochise, and his successors Victorio and Ju, caused the death of over 15,000 Mexicans in the northern territories.

Within Mexico, Juárez's main rival was his former ally Porfirio Díaz. Like Juárez, Díaz was an Indian from Oaxaca, but a Mixtec rather than a Zapotec. A military leader, he had distinguished himself in the wars against the Conservatives and Imperialists. He challenged Juárez at the polls in 1867 but did poorly against a statesman who was at the height of his popularity. He tried again in 1871, this time claiming that he lost through electoral fraud. Rising in revolt, Díaz's ideological standard was the principle of "no reelection." In seeking another term, Díaz claimed, Juárez was attempting to perpetuate himself in office. Bringing his rebel forces to the gates of Mexico City, Díaz called for a general uprising. It was not forthcoming and his forces were routed by troops loyal to Juárez. As is well-known, Díaz not only lived to fight another day but this "crusader" against reelection would also live to impose a 35-year dictatorship over Mexico.

Worn out from five years of frustration and disappointment, Juárez succumbed to a heart attack on July 17, 1872. Working at his desk in the National Palace, he truly died in harness.

That last unfruitful segment of Juárez's life does nothing to detract from his stature as Mexico's Lincoln. Faced with an almost impossible situation, his courage and perseverance never flagged.

An interesting speculation: what if Lincoln had lived to serve out his second term? Thanks to an assassin's bullet, he had the "luck" to die a martyr. But what if he had been faced, as was Juárez, with the challenge of rebuilding a war-torn nation? Would he not have suffered some of the frustrations and disillusionments that plagued his Mexican counterpart?

Zimmerman

EL TELEGRAMA ZIMMERMAN
Por Juan Ramon Jimenez de Leon
oikos@yumka.com

El 17 de enero de 1917, la sección política británica conocida como Sala 40, desencriptó el código alemán No.13040, el cuál estaba dividido en dos partes, una iba dirigido al embajador alemán en los Estados Unidos, Albrecht Von Bernstroff, y a hablaba de la intención de reanudar la guerra de submarinos “sin ninguna restricción”, y la segunda parte iba dirigida al representante alemán en México, Heinrich Von Eckhardt.

Lo que sucedió en esos años es importante analizar a la luz de los acontecimientos recientes de militarizar la frontera, que es un acto hostil de Estados Unidos contra México, probablemente sea en represalia por las gigantescas manifestaciones de mexicanos, latinos y migrantes en general, pero dirigidos por mexicanos, que cimbraron el sistema político, al ver que ellos en su gran mayoría llevaban banderas de México e imágenes de la Virgen de Guadalupe, eso aceleró el chouvinismo de los grupos ultra-conservadores de ambos lados de la frontera, el expresidente Fox gritando desaforadamente como si fuera un partido de fútbol que lo que suceda alrededor de las reformas de migración que discute el Congreso, anticipadamente, lo considera un éxito suyo, cuando que en realidad, no hizo nada por los migrantes, antes al contrario, les quitó a los consulados mexicanos la función de defensoría legal de nuestros compatriotas y ahora solo se dedican al business, promover exportaciones de México, Bush por otra parte exigia que para nacionalizarse americano tienen que hablar ingles y respetar las costumbres de su país, cuando que esto no es reversible, las grandes urbes son y seguirán siendo bilingües con mayor profundidad, pero el hecho de militarizar la frontera y esperar un acto hostil de México similar al 11 de septiembre, parece algo fuera de contexto, ilógico y descontrolado del bushismo-straussismo que busca influir en México para poner de rodillas al peso mexicano, pero eso históricamente lo han hecho desde 1944 cuando lograron la aprobación mundial del Patrón Dólar.

Regresando al contexto histórico del Telegrama {Arthur} Zimmerman, Secretario de Relaciones Exteriores del Káiser Guillermo II , Zimmerman era un experto en el arte del espionaje, ya que había participado en el apoyo de Lenin para derrocar al Zar Alexander Romanov y en la Guerra de los Boxers en China, Alemania desde 1914 ya tenía planes para utilizar a México contra EUA y fue tejiendo una red de espionaje muy sólida para atacar primero el Canal de Panamá y después iniciar una guerra entre los dos vecinos, contando con el apoyo del Japón, quien de una manera muy eficiente fue introduciendo la país gran cantidad de personas que tenían entrenamiento militar y que poco a poco se fueron concentrando en Chiapas, para de ahí empezar la invasión de Panamá, llegaron a tener 10,000 soldados de línea, puestos a iniciar la maniobra, el organizador de esa operación fue Paul Von Hintze y fue quien le ofreció a Victoriano Huerta, el asesino de Francisco I Madero, la oportunidad de vengarse del desprecio del Presidente en turno, Woodrow Wilson, mediante el corte del suministro de petróleo a la flota británica que era vital para la sobrevivencia de Inglaterra, el petróleo lo tenia controlado Lord Cowdray, que era el dueño de la empresa inglesa El Águila, Wilson admiraba a Madero, despreciaba a Huerta y desconfiaba de Carranza. La prensa amarillista de Randolph Hearst mediante sus socios mexicanos las familias Creel y Terrazas, desataban histerias colectivas en los Estados Unidos dando información, proporcionada por estas familias bien conectadas con los círculos de poder {actualmente tenemos como sus herederos a Santiago Creel y Francisco Barrio Terrazas, sospechosos de estar detrás de la “elección de estado” que se vislumbra el 2 de julio del 2006} de que los alemanes ya tenían una fabrica de armamentos en México, dirigida por el Gral. Maximiliano Kloss {cerveza kloster} y tenia bajo sus ordenes a 50 militares alemanes naturalizados mexicanos que hacían labor de espionaje en los ejércitos de Villa, Zapata, Obregón, Carranza y Huerta.

En aquel entonces empezaba su carrera militar Franz Von Papen, quien luego sería una pieza importante con Hitler y de nuevo su intención con México, especialmente la facción obregonista, Alejandro Carrillo era una de sus piezas claves, esta facción ha sido la hegemónica en el transcurso de los años, repitiendo en las Administraciones de Pascual Ortiz Rubio, Manuel Ávila Camacho, Miguel Alemán, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, Miguel de la Madrid, Carlos Salinas de Gortari { la facción callista se repite con Abelardo L. Rodríguez, Adolfo López Mateos y Luis Echeverria, la carrancista se renueva con Adolfo Ruiz Cortinez y muy ligeramente López Portillo por su abuelo que era carrancista y la cardenista pierde su oportunidad con Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas , Vicente Fox pertenece a la contra-revolución sinarquista ahora yunquera de Calderon, con datos de Saúl Álvarez y su libro Alta Política Mexicana }.

Regresando a los alemanes, su red de espionaje tenía como casa matriz a Nueva York, ya que su cuartel general se encontraba en Long Island y tenía como fachada la Liga Bohemia en donde se encontraban serbios, croatas, austriacos, checos, húngaros, rumanos, polacos, belgas y holandeses, dirigidos por el suizo-alemán, Rintelen.

Cuando Huerta es depuesto por Carranza, se embarca de Veracruz rumbo a Nueva York en el vapor Ypiranga que pertenecía a la línea Hamburg-Amerika, empresa de comercio exterior de Alemania que dirigía Von Papen. Huerta en Nueva York sigue muy cerca de los alemanes, a tal grado que era vigilado por los americanos, los ingleses y los carrancistas, pues se pensaba que estaba fraguando su retorno al estilo Napoleón cuando regresa triunfante de la Isla de Elba, para ello era apoyado dentro de México por Félix Díaz, sobrino de Porfirio Díaz, y Manuel Peláez, el general de las guardias blancas apoyado financiado por las petroleras, ambos enemigos mortales de Carranza. El centro de espionaje alemán se fortalecía en Tampico con Carl Heynen y Federico Stallforth, quienes estaban organizando la invasión de Estados Unidos por dos rutas, Brownsville {que pretendía tomar San Antonio} y El Paso, Texas {que pretendía tomar Denver}. Huerta pensaba organizar su invasión primero por El Paso/ Ciudad Juárez que tenía controlada Pascual Orozco con mas de 10,000 hombres. Huerta se desplaza primero hacia San Francisco, luego a Los Ángeles, posteriormente a Denver y de ahí se dirige a El Paso, en cada una de las plazas iba reclutando fuerzas de mexicanos emigrados y de simpatizantes de la Liga Bohemia y del Japón. Frente a lo que se consideraba inminente, Estados Unidos decide detenerlo {junto a Orozco} en la estación de Newman, Nuevo México a unos 30 kilómetros de El Paso y llevado a Fort Bliss, en un descuido, Orozco se escapa a México, pero poco después es asesinado por fuerzas militares americanas. Huerta queda en prisión, el Presidente Wilson entonces andaba galanteando a una bella y joven señora Galt {espía alemán} y lo tenía distraído y además poco a poco fue influenciando en el animo de que Carranza era enemigo de los Estados Unidos porque estaba nacionalizando los ferrocarriles y la Constitución de 1917 significaba de ipso ipso la nacionalización del petróleo y la minería, además había confiscado las tierras y el ganado de Randolph Hearst {un fanático alemán, como lo demostró posteriormente con Hitler y su aliado en Hollywood, el popular artista Errol Flynn}, por lo tanto lo mejor era apoyar a Francisco Villa, enemigo de Carranza, para eso era necesario deshacerse del Secretario de Estado Bryan- que apoyaba críticamente al Constitucionalismo de Carranza- y poner en su lugar a Richard Lansing este personaje fue el que desarrollo el lema “ México es un país extraordinariamente fácil de dominar, porque basta controlar a un solo hombre: El Presidente, por lo tanto tenemos que abandonar la idea de poner en la Presidencia mexicana a un ciudadano americano, ya que eso llevaría de nuevo a una guerra con México. La solución necesita mas tiempo: debemos abrir a los jóvenes ambiciosos las puertas de nuestras universidades y hacer el esfuerzo de educarlos en el modo de vida americano, en nuestros valores y en el liderzago de los Estados Unidos. México necesitará de administradores competentes, con el tiempo esos jóvenes llegarán a ocupar cargos importantes y eventualmente se adueñaran de la Presidencia. Así sin necesidad de que Estados Unidos gaste un solo centavo o dispare un tiro, harán lo que queramos. Y lo harán mejor y mas radicalmente que nosotros” Lansing era Secretario de Estado de Woodow Wilson en 1924 {publicado en La Jornada del 22 de marzo del 2002} y participa en la conspiración de Los Tratados de Bucarelí en donde Álvaro Obregón cedió en todo con EUA y fueron el resultado de la Conspiración para asesinar al Presidente Carranza.

Por lo tanto resultando que Huerta era un peligro, deciden envenenarlo en Fort Bliss {El Paso, Texas}, oficialmente estaba enfermo de ictericia, ya agonizante lo sueltan para que no muriera en una prisión de ese país, sin embargo como milagro se repone y empieza a dar lata de nuevo y de nuevo lo envían a prisión, la enfermedad vuelve y ahora si se muere en ella el 10 de enero de 1916, como represalia Villa y Orozco, asesinan seis días después a 17 mineros norteamericanos en Santa Isabel, Chihuahua, lo que desata una histeria colectiva contra los mexicanos en los EUA, a tal grado que El Paso es militarizada y empresarios y mercenarios se instalan en la frontera para cazar a los mexicanos, el expresidente Teodoro Roosevelt, pide que la Guardia Nacional organice una expedición punitiva para capturar a Villa. Wilson que se acababa de casar de nuevo, pone oídos sordos a eso y decide no intervenir en México, lo hizo en Veracruz en 1914 y decide no cometer el error de nuevo y pide apoyo a su Secretario de Estado, Lansing quien establece esta política exterior “

Alemania desea mantener los disturbios en México para que EUA intervenga, por lo tanto no intervendremos. Alemania no quiere que ninguna facción sea la dominante en México, por lo tanto nosotros tenemos que reconocer a una facción. Nuestras relaciones con Alemania deben de ser de primer nivel y de esas relaciones debe de resultar el trato con México”.

De esta forma, Wilson decide reconocer oficialmente al Gobierno de Carranza ,lo que molesta enormemente a Villa, que decide atacar Columbus, Nuevo México el 9 de marzo de 1916. El embajador de EUA en Alemania, James Gerard, decía que había pruebas concluyentes de que el ataque era inspiración alemana. El Presidente Wilson se ve obligado a regresar el golpe y envía al General Pershing a perseguir a Villa, el Presidente Carranza protesta enérgicamente contra esta acción punitiva, pero evita confrontarse con los 6,000 soldados americanos a menos de que llegaran a Torreón, en donde se estaban concentrando todas las fuerzas constitucionalistas. EUA ya 550 kilómetros adentro de Chihuahua, consideran inminente el choque entre los dos ejércitos y deciden que deben invadir en gran escala a México. Los agentes alemanes en Tampico, empiezan a proveer armas a Carranza y a Villa. Cuando Villa saqueaba la capital de Chihuahua se dieron ordenes de respetar las propiedades de familias alemanas o de intereses alemanes como Krakauer, Zork, Moye, Ketelson, Debetau, etc, Alemania llamaba a sus compatriotas en los EUA para que se registraran en los consulados mexicanos como combatientes del inminente choque entre Carranza y Wilson, el 21 de junio, por fin se dio la primera escaramuza entre las tropas de ambos lados, el la zona conocida como Carrizal cerca de Parral {tierra preferida por Villa} hubo 12 muertos y 23 detenidos a manos de los constitucionalistas, el influyente New York Times decía que ese acto hostil llamaba a la guerra, el Chicago Tribune, decía que la guerra con México era inminente y Estados Unidos debía aprovecharla para expandir sus dominios hasta Panamá, que sería menos costosa la guerra contra México que contra Alemania, y eso se refleja en el reciente Plan-Puebla-Panamá que ahora se le anexa Colombia, que vendría a ser la segunda frontera de Estados Unidos, la primera es la frontera con México, que por cierto se menciona va a ser minada al estilo la frontera Israel-Palestina, vamos a ver si esas valientes mujeres emulas de Lady Diana de Gales y su lucha contra las minas unipersonales, se oponen a estas medidas totalmente hostiles a México, la segunda frontera también pronto se pondrá caliente cuando choquen el “anillo geopolítico y geoestratégico bolivariano” impulsado por Venezuela y el “anillo imperial y subimperial neoliberal” impulsado por los Estados Unidos, aunque la Panamá del heredero de Torrijos y las redes de espionaje y contención desarrolladas por Graham Greene, el literato { en realidad era el jefe de la inteligencia británica que había vivido un buen tiempo en Tabasco y Campeche} ahora mejoradas por los chinos se dejan absorber en el interland centroamericano, la función del neoliberal mexicano, José Ángel Gurría, incrustado en la OCDE de París quien busca balcanizar a Centroamérica con su propuesta de una moneda única y obviamente con un Banco Central Centroamericano que seguiría las líneas del FMI, los Estados Unidos buscan desesperadamente con su Destino Manifiesto controlar el trópico húmedo del sureste mexicano para fusionarlo con el centroamericano para los intereses personales del bushismo, hay que recordar que la United Fruit Centroamericana fue adquirida por Papá Bush y que Marvin Bush adquirió la Del Monte de Carlos Cabal Peniche{Banca Unión}-José Ángel Gurría {NAFINSA}-Eduardo Bours{Bachoco} y ahora se lanzan por el oro en sus dos versiones, el amarillo y el azul {agua}, eso era en tiempos de Bush con Obama puede cambiar la perspectiva y todos esperamos pronto definiciones de estos temas estructurales y no coyunturales.

Sobre la Guerra entre México y Estados Unidos, por Federico Engels, mancuerna inglesa del alemán Karl Marx.........” Hemos presenciado también, con la debida satisfacción, la derrota de México por los Estados Unidos. También esto representa un avance. Pues cuando un país embrollado hasta allí en sus propios negocios, perpetuamente desgarrado por guerras civiles y sin salida alguna para su desarrollo, un país cuya perspectiva mejor habría sido la sumisión a Inglaterra; cuando este país se ve arrastrado forzosamente al progreso histórico, no tenemos mas remedio que considerarlo como un país que ha dado un paso adelante. En interés de su propio desarrollo, convenía que México cayese bajo la tutela de los Estados Unidos. La evolución de todo el continente americano no saldría perdiendo nada con estos, tomando posesión de California, se pongan al frente del Pacifico. Y volvemos a preguntar : ¿Quién saldrá ganando con esta guerra? La respuesta es siempre la misma: La burguesía y sólo la burguesía. Los Estados Unidos han adquirido las nuevas regiones de California y Nuevo México, para la creación de nuevo capital. Esto significa que en esos nuevos territorios surgirá una nueva clase burguesa y que la vieja clase verá incrementar sus caudales de dinero. Y en cuanto al corte transversal, nos preguntamos ¿ Que se proyecta para el Istmo de Tehuantepec?¿Quién saldrá ganando? Pues los magnates navieros de los Estados Unidos ¿Quién puede seguir ganando con su expansión sobre todo el Pacifico, sino esos magnates navieros?¿Quién atenderá a las necesidades de los nuevos clientes conquistados en todos esos territorios anexados y controlados? Quien sino los fabricantes de los Estados Unidos.....publicado en La Gaceta Alemana de Bruselas, el 23 de enero de 1848 y citado por Domingo P de Toledo y Jiménez, México en la obra de Marx y Engels, Fondo de Cultura Económica, México, 1939, pp.28-29, eso ya lo avizoraban los agentes alemanes del Káiser en la Primera Guerra Mundial y especialmente el Mayor Herwarth Von Bitterfeld, viejo experto en México y era el encargado de cooptar a los generales alrededor del “viejo coyote del desierto” como le llamaban a Carranza, quien los había apoyado para hacerse cargo de la Guggenheim American Smelting and Refining Company, a la que los alemanes rebautizaron como Cia. Metalúrgica de Torreón, ahora Peñoles (controlada por Alberto Bailleres dueño del Palacio de Hierro y Fundador el ITAM de donde se nutren las ideas neoliberales, socio de ENRON y recién dueño del segundo rancho mas grande de Texas, Chaparrosa, localizado en la región aledaña a Cristal City, la única ciudad controlada por los boinas cafés del Partido de la Raza Unida de José Ángel Gutiérrez, también fundador el movimiento radical chicano de MECHA- Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Atzlán- y compañero de Antonio Orendain y los Texas Farmworkers, de los años sesentas y setentas).

La ruta de los mensajes alemanes encriptados salían de la Ciudad de México vía Sayville, Long Island, New York y de ahí al cuartel general de Nauen (en las afueras de Berlín), ruta muy monitoreada por los americanos y los ingleses, por lo tanto el sueco germanófilo Folk Cronholm, desarrolló una nueva ruta vía MXC-Valparaiso {Chile}, Buenos Aires {Argentina} y Estocolmo {Suecia}y los documentos se encriptaban en alemán y de ahí en sueco para volverse a traducir al alemán, para ello se contó con el apoyo del General Maximiliano Kloss, el espía alemán con mas alto rango dentro del ejercito constitucionalista, quien buscaba desesperadamente en donde esconder a la flota de submarinos alemanes y finalmente encontró su Isla del Tesoro en Isla del Carmen {Campeche} en donde los alemanes ya habían hecho prospecciones petroleras siguiendo las experiencias del Emperador Maximiliano de Hapsburgo en Tabasco y Campeche y donde decían claramente que ahí habían grandes depósitos de petróleo {mencionado en los 100 años del petróleo mexicano, Memoria de PEMEX con apoyo financiero de la francesa Schlumberger), al enviar a dos de sus mas allegados, Rafael Zurbarán a Alemania y el Mayor Carpio { en el navío Empress of Asia} a Tokio, para la compra de armas, esa jugada carrancista obliga a Estados Unidos a movilizar 4/5 partes de su ejercito a la frontera con México.

Alemania tenía 1,300,000 alemanes inmigrados recientemente y mas de 10 millones de ciudadanos con nacionalidad americana pero con ascendencia germana y otros 10 millones de la Liga Bohemia, lo que significaba en ese entonces una cantidad muy importante de germanofilos al interior mismo de los EUA, muchos de ellos instalados en la frontera con México, específicamente al norte de San Antonio {New Braunfels, Boerne, Schertz, Fredericksburg, Luchenbach, etc) el llamado Hill Country, por ello Estados Unidos fue llenando de bases militares a San Antonio, los alemanes empezaron soltando los submarinos que inmediatamente hundieron los barcos Lusitania y Sussex, lo que EUA considera como agresión declarada de guerra a finales de 1916 y principios de 1917, la situación era muy tensa en Europa y en la frontera con México, Lloyd George, Primer Ministro Ingles estaba presionado a Wilson para declarar la guerra en Europa y contra México, además quería sacar definitivamente del gobierno alemán a los Hohenzollern, que no regresaran jamás al gobierno, para ello ya habían derrotado a Rumania y Rusia estaba a punto de entrar en la revolución bolchevique, que daba miedo a los dos bandos por su carácter radical anti-capitalista y pro-comunista, pero definitivamente aliada superficialmente con Alemania por su líder ideológico, Karl Marx, por lo que Alemania consideraba como óptima la correlación de fuerzas a favor del Káiser, Turquía avanzaba fuerte en su zona de influencia y la neutral Bélgica fue arrasada por los alemanes que los enviaban como esclavos a trabajar a sus factorías de guerra, Carranza observaba los acontecimientos con absoluta tranquilidad lo que desesperaba a los alemanes y a los americanos, y fue tendiendo lazos hacia Rusia, lo que irritó a ambos, ya que la Constitución era de izquierda y muy radical en el control de los recursos del subsuelo por lo que de una plumazo se quita las influencias nefastas de los dos bandos {ingles y americano vs el germano} y llama a un embargo de materiales de guerra a los países beligerantes, en lugar de ser manipulado por ellos, manipula a ambos con el tema del petróleo y la minería, por lo que Zimmermann se va acorralado y envía el famoso telegrama como destinatario a Carranza para presionarlo a entrar en guerra con su vecino del norte, para así Alemania doblegar a Inglaterra que esta a punto de quebrar financieramente que gastaba 10 millones de dólares diarios en pertrechos de guerra comprados a los Estados Unidos y su flota dependía del petróleo de Tampico y no era suficientemente poderosa para enfrentar la guerra de submarinos germanos, Estados Unidos no quería ya la guerra con México porque lo pondría a combatir en tres frentes, en Europa, en la frontera común con México y veía con recelo el avance nipón en el Pacifico, así en sus planes de contingencia decían que si ganaba Alemania la guerra, EUA perdería Texas y California, Panamá sería de los japoneses, al igual que Baja California, Canadá sería también anexada por Alemania y Rusia reclamaría Alaska y el Oregón, en abril de 1917, Wilson declaró la guerra a Alemania y en un año los hizo añicos y los obligó a negociar casi de rodillas en los Tratados de Versalles, el 18 de enero de 1919, los representantes de los países vencedores se reunieron en la denominad Conferencia de París, bajo la dirección del Comité de los Cuatro: el presidente estadounidense Woodrow Wilson, el premier británico Lloyd George, el primer ministro francés Clemenceau y Orlando, el jefe del ejecutivo italiano. Son los tres primeros, sin embargo, los que realmente dirigieron unas negociaciones a las que los países derrotados no pudieron asistir.

El 4 de octubre de 1918, los alemanes habían pedido un armisticio basado en las propuestas recogidas en los "Catorce puntos" de Wilson. La realidad de la derrota fue, sin embargo, más dura. Los países vencedores llegaron a París con ideas diferentes y compromisos, a veces secretos, adquiridos durante la guerra. Alemania quedó hundida, la Republica de Weimar {hiperinflación}, apenas asomaba y fue el origen del ascenso de Hitler, por eso Lord Keynes no estuvo de acuerdo con las reparaciones de guerra pues percibía la revancha alemana a muy corto plazo y no se equivocó, como responsable de una guerra iniciada por su agresión, Alemania quedó obligada a pagar reparaciones o indemnizaciones de guerra a los vencedores. Conferencia de Spa (1920) fija el porcentaje que recibiría cada país del total: Francia 52%, Gran Bretaña 22%, Italia 10%, Bélgica 8% En la Conferencia de Londres (1920) se fija el monto total de las reparaciones: 140,000 millones de marcos-oro, una enorme cantidad. México se salvó gracias a la astucia del “coyote del desierto” dicen que es el animal mas inteligente del mundo y el mote reflejaba el control y firmeza del Jefe Constitucionalista.